The text for Pastor John's message this morning is found in the Gospel of Matthew,

Chapter 4 verses 8 through 10.

Again the devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them.

And he said to him,

All these I will give you if you will fall down and worship me.

Then Jesus said to him, Be gone, Satan,

for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God,

and him only shall you serve.

Over the past several years we have developed a philosophy of ministry and some theological

distinctives at Bethlehem that are not new but are very precious to us. They

revolve around three priorities, worship, nurture, and evangelism.

And those priorities correspond to three relationships in which we exist, a relationship to God, a relationship with each other in the family of faith, and a relationship with people outside without Christ.

This church exists, therefore, for three purposes

or to fulfill three priorities.

This banner is in process of composition.

And by the end of three weeks, there will be three symbols that one is priority number one

we exist to reflect back to God his grace in worship.

Next week we will talk about priority two.

We exist to apply the grace of God in the edification of one another unto love and faith.

And in the following week we'll talk about priority number three.

We exist to extend the grace of God to people outside in the form of domestic evangelism

and frontier missions. The practical implication of having a philosophy of ministry like this is that we can

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